


like the sky is new

by psikeval



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, Tangled AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:31:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikeval/pseuds/psikeval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Could you get me somewhere far away, if you wanted?”</p><p>And her first impulse, of course, is to say she can do anything, but — “Sorry, what?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the sky is new

**Author's Note:**

> All in-game lore & geography is subject to wild misuse and reinterpretation; this is only a lighthearted AU and does not take place in Thedas as we know it. WARNING for canon-based depiction of self-injury done to perform blood magic.

 

All it is, really, is a place to hide. A slew of vines crawling over the mouth of a cave, which leads Isabela to a cellar door tucked behind a stone, and a cramped stairwell up, up, _up_ to what has to be a bloody tower or something, for as long as it takes to get anywhere. The air stops smelling so much like cave, and she climbs long enough that she thinks it might almost be better to turn back. It could be a dead end, or worse.

So she hesitates, just for a moment, anxiously shifting on the narrow stone steps, testing the weight of the tome tucked under her arm. She’s heard what the Qunari do to people they don’t like. If even half of that is true—no. There’s no going back the way she came. She can’t risk it.

Which means it’s forward, circling up, around and around so many times she’d be dizzy if she went any faster. Her thighs burn with exertion; she must’ve climbed an entire bloody mountain by now. But when she comes up finally through the floor of an entryway, clean-swept stone and a fireplace set into the fair wall, light streaming in from windows above — _progress, at last_ — the only door is covered in so many traps and enchantments it makes her skin hurt just to look at it. That’s no way out.

Onward, then, again.

The stairs continue, broader and more suited to her stride but still a strain on her legs. Will it ever end? Is she stuck in some sort of endless walking trap? Because, if so, unequivocally, _screw that_. She’d rather go directly to the void. When Isabela sees another door, blessedly normal un-magical wood, she shoves herself against it and stumbles through.

And it takes her a moment to look around, breathless and tired as she is, but there’s a woman sitting inside, short and slight, with forest-green eyes gone wide at the sight of her.

“What?” she says, startled, and holds up a hand, and Isabela falls quite suddenly asleep.

 

\--

 

Waking up is far less pleasant than being unconscious. For one thing, her legs still hurt like a bitch from all that damned climbing. Her elbow aches from being struck on the stone, and she’s tied to a chair with loops upon loops of shiny blue ribbon, enough she can hardly budge—just sits there, blinking uncomfortably into the late afternoon sun.

There’s movement in the shadow by the window, the light too bright in Isabela’s eyes for her to make out a shape.

“Who’s there?”

“My name is Merrill.” It must be the woman from before—the same light voice, the same slender shoulders when she steps in front of the window, silhouetted. Her face is obscured by her halo of sunlight, but her stance is peaceful enough, hands held empty where Isabela can see them. Not that a mage needs anything more, come to that. “You’re trespassing, you know.”

“Trust me, I’ll be more than happy to get out of your way.”

“Why have you come?”

“Bad luck,” says Isabela wryly, twisting the kinks from her neck as she looks around. Improbably heavy furniture, considering it would’ve had to be brought up all those stairs somehow — a bearskin rug, a large mirror standing in the corner. “Where is ‘here,’ anyway?”

Merrill tilts her head, quick and curious, like a strange little bird. “You mean you don’t know already? People usually do, if they go to the trouble of finding their way here.”

“What can I say. I’m exceptional. So…?”

“This,” she says reverently, spreading out her hands, “is the dwelling place of Mythal.”

Isabela squints a bit. Elven god, almost definitely. “You mean it’s a temple?”

“It’s more of a tower, really,” says Merrill, glancing around them.

“Yes, I can see that, kitten.” She can’t quite help smirking. For a moment she hesitates, and then decides to hell with it. “Speaking of which, d’you mind if I see your face?

“Oh, I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I just wanted to get a look at you and I forgot— the sun must be— I’m sorry, I wasn’t—” She turns a chair full of Isabela with surprising ease, mid-apology, and there she is.

The eyes are mostly what Isabela remembers, and they’re exactly that shade of green, the one she’d thought must have been a trick of the light. An elf, pale and dark-haired, with a quick skittish edge to the motions of her hands, the look of someone who’s learned to flinch from shadows. There are faint tattoos etched across her face, the Dalish kind.

She’s frowning at Isabela, just a little.

“Can I ask you— why did you call me that?”

“What, kitten? It’s a nickname. Never had one?”

“Well, Varric calls me Daisy—but Kitten is nice, too,” she says quickly.

Isabela lifts an eyebrow. _Nice_ , is it? And trapped here all alone with a pretty girl? She can work with that. She can still pull off ‘seductive sprawl’ when tied to a chair. It wouldn’t even be the first time, sad to say. All they need is a little bit of momentum.

“So you like it? Do you…” Having her hands tied behind the chair is helpful, but she arches her back a bit too, rewarded by Merrill’s gaze drifting downwards. “…see anything else you like?”

“Oh. They’re quite nice,” she says politely. _Politely_. What the sodding hell has Isabela’s life come to? “Can I ask who you are now, or did you want to keep going?”

“Ugh,” she groans, and sits rather huffily back upright—a shame, because she normally likes to preen for the next bit. “My name is Isabela, raider captain and Queen of the Eastern Seas.”

“Does that mean you’re a pirate?”

“Not just _a_ pirate,” Isabela feels the need to clarify. “The _best_ pirate.”

“Could you get me somewhere far away, if you wanted?”

And her first impulse, of course, is to say she can do anything, but— “Sorry, what?”

“There’s going to be a meeting of the Dalish clans. The arlathvhen.” Merrill reaches out and begins to unwind the ribbon wrapped around Isabela, as if somehow the matter is already settled. “I wanted to go, but— I can’t, alone.”

“And you want _me_ to take you to this…arl of whatever.”

“If you do, I’ll give you back your book.”

“My— oh, _shit_.”

“It’s right over there,” says Merrill, pointing to the low cabinet nestled under the window. “Only you can’t open it.”

“Can’t?” She flexes her newly freed wrists and laughs. “Listen, sweet thing—”

Isabela barely reaches for it before she snatches her hand back, shuddering, teeth clenched against the inexplicable urge to scream. The room remains sunny and bright, but her heart is racing with horror as if she’d been flung to a pit of quicksand, leeches, drained dry with no way out. She steps away and sits heavily on the bed, digging her fingers into the soft sun-warmed blanket.

“So you’re quite the mage,” she says at last, when she can say it calmly.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Merrill, and she genuinely looks it. “I should’ve warned you better.”

“Oh, no need.” Isabela waves it away, unconcerned despite the shivers still crawling down her spine. Serves her right, really, for underestimating the woman who knocked her out cold like it was nothing. Good to know she can take care of herself, out here in this ridiculous tower.

Isabela’s priorities are sometimes not quite where they ought to be.

While Isabela’s busy leaning into the sunlight until warmth soaks into her skin again, Merrill goes back to packing, which she must have started doing when Isabela was still unconscious. It’s a bit off-putting, honestly. She likes to think of herself as a harder nut to crack.

To that end, she straightens up and asks, “What happens if I say no?”

Merrill’s mouth becomes a startled little ‘o’, her hands gone still in the middle of wrapping up a loaf of bread. “I suppose I’d have to keep you here for Mythal.”

“Like a human sacrifice?” demands Isabela, proud of only sounding the slightest bit hysterical.

“I hope not!” says Merrill, and it should sound disingenuous, threatening even, but she’s just so damned sincere. It’s something in the eyes. “She doesn’t usually like to kill people.”

‘Usually’ is not the most reassuring of words.

“New plan,” she announces, standing briskly. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’d prefer it went like that. You might want to step away,” Merrill warns before opening up the cabinet that’s magicked. “It’ll just be a moment, I promise. We’ll feed the wards instead of breaking them,” she says, while Isabela examines the far corner until it feels less like things are crawling up her legs. “I doubt she’ll even know I’ve gone.”

“Tough curfew, with your gods?”

“I’ve never been out of the tower very much. She likes to keep me safe.”

“Does she?” says Isabela, smiling thinly.

Going down the stairs is much easier, though the benefits of her impromptu nap were probably offset by the bruises. Either way, she still can’t wait to finally stop moving and sleep this whole blasted day away.

Merrill is leading the way, a dark grey cloak around her shoulders and a definite spring in her step, and she walks straight towards the entryway Isabela passed earlier, that awful, hungry door—not a trip line in sight, no trick tiles or tiny hidden triggers she can see, but—

“Wait,” she says sharply, grabbing Merrill with both hands to hold her back. “There’s something here.”

“Are you sensitive to magic?” asks Merrill, full of curiosity and not, apparently, the slightest bit concerned about being held. Isabela spreads her hand over Merrill’s waist and feels that gentle build of a mage, soft and slim in a way no one ever is on a pirate ship.

“I’ve spent most of my life looking out for traps. I don’t think it matters what sort.”

“Oh. Well, you’re right, of course, but I can get by. It’s just that I’m not really allowed.”

Isabela lets a slow smile spread across her face. “I’m ready to break rules if you are, kitten.”

Merrill smiles back, wide enough that it puts cute little lines around her eyes, and it’s all quite sweet until the moment she steps forward and slices her own palm with a knife.

“What—”

“Blood magic,” she answers, rather unnecessarily, while dripping blood across the entryway until the room starts to feel normal again. “I do that sometimes. Does it bother you?”

“Useful, I guess,” says Isabela numbly. Then: “But are you all right?”

“I’ve done worse,” Merrill tells her, which does _not_ make her feel better. “It’ll heal on its own soon. I was just chewing elfroot an hour ago.”

In the midst of this, she steps up to the door and drags it open, the heavy slab of wood scraping on the stone floor, letting more daylight spill in. Merrill turns her face towards it with a happy, wistful sigh. “I haven’t been out here in such a long time. When spring comes I always wish we could have a sort of picnic, there in the clearing.”

She gestures over toward it helpfully.

“Wait.” Isabela grabs up her hand and turns it—and damned if Merrill wasn’t right, the cut has all but disappeared—but there are faint scars all over her skin, some barely paper cuts and a few awful shining gouges, the kind of thing that will never heal away.

“It’s all right,” says Merrill, like she’s the one trying to reassure Isabela. “They don’t hurt.”

“But they did, once.”

“I never really notice in the heat of the moment.” She glances up, suddenly bright-eyed and eager, from inspecting her scars. “I was kidnapped by a strange little cult once! Remind me to tell you the story later. Maybe around a campfire.”

Assuming Isabela hasn’t cut and run by then.

She helps Merrill shut the door behind them, and could swear the enchantments are already humming to life again, like some sort of storybook monster waking from sleep, never kept at bay for long. Honestly, the sooner they get out of this place the better.

“Right,” she says briskly. Being brisk is the key; she is not at all rattled. “Which way to the Arl of Then?”

“It will be to the west, this year. Towards Kirkwall.”

And oh, they _would_ have to walk toward that blighted city of chains, wouldn’t they. Isabela tells herself it doesn’t matter, that she’ll get what she needs from Merrill and be on her way long before they step within the reach of the city guard. If nothing else, she’ll just get Merrill drunk, tuck her into a nice warm bedroll and be long gone with the tome in hand when she wakes.

“Kirkwall it is,” she tells Merrill. “Are you ready?”

“Yes! I can’t wait to see the rest of these woods. I’ve never really had much adventure before.”

“Aside from kidnapping cults.”

“And the time we had dragon hunters, yes.”

“Tell me,” says Isabela, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her down the grassy slope, towards where (if memory serves) there’s a worn-down Carta trail that hasn’t seen much use in years. “Have you ever been on the open ocean?”

“I’ve only heard stories—it sounds very beautiful.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she promises, her mind only half on the words.

There’s a square-cornered bulge in Merrill’s bag that might be the tome, and for a moment Isabela considers reaching out to grab it — but even as she looks, the skin prickles over her shoulderblades and she thinks to herself, _better not._

 


End file.
